


incēnāta

by tokyonightskies



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Kissing, Love Bites, Marriage, Military, Military Background, Military Kink, Politics, Pregnancy, Rough Kissing, Sexual Tension, Skin Hunger, Strategy & Tactics, Threats of Violence, Young Varis zos Galvus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28031235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyonightskies/pseuds/tokyonightskies
Summary: "You're ruminating."His gaze flicks away from the classified reports on his desk. She's leaning against the doorframe, her ankles crossed and her mouth curved at the corner. With the shoes she's wearing, Varis is surprised he hasn't heard her approach."Contemplating." He corrects her, succinct like a single strikethrough of his pen. Neat and steady."Brooding," she says, pushing into the study proper. Stalking closer with the grace and economy of a large cat. Her eyes, fever-bright in the dim, sweep over the broad span of his shoulders, and she adds, "Again."--or zenos takes after his mother.
Relationships: Varis zos Galvus/Original Character(s), Varis zos Galvus/Zenos yae Galvus's Mother
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	incēnāta

**Author's Note:**

> “Her smile, I’m sure, burnt Rome to the ground.” -- Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

"You're ruminating."

His gaze flicks away from the classified reports on his desk. She's leaning against the doorframe, her ankles crossed and her mouth curved at the corner. With the shoes she's wearing, Varis is surprised he hasn't heard her approach.

"Contemplating." He corrects her, succinct like a single strikethrough of his pen. Neat and steady. 

"Brooding," she says, pushing into the study proper. Stalking closer with the grace and economy of a large cat. Her eyes, fever-bright in the dim, sweep over the broad span of his shoulders, and she adds, " _ Again _ ."

Varis isn't afraid of his wife, but he is  _ wary _ . She glides her hand palm-flat over the sleek, polished surface of his desk like she would over bare skin, and his nail-beds tingle at the sight. The lithe lines of her body have the cold elegance of a marble statue and betray nothing she doesn't want them to. He shuffles the documents, the rustle of paper viscerally inobtrusive in the silence, a footnote. The off-the-shoulder glance she levels him is coy, but hungry.

Her fingers skim the northern border of Ilsabard on the laminated map of the empire he keeps spread out over his desk. Discolored in the harsh glare of the ceruleum lamp, the territories of Garlemald seem to blanch from her touch. 

"You have been holed up in here all evening." Her tone of voice remains airy, a stark contrast with how patiently she moves towards him; the sound of her footsteps lingering in the open space around them. Varis offers her a smile, small and tight like a sealed missive, and she doesn't say,  _ "The servants will talk if you forego dinner with your spouse." _

Rumors are deadly at court. They both know this well enough. 

He doesn't apologize. Instead, Varis points at a name on the map that's scrunched against the dotted line marking the border with Corvos. His wife tilts her head, clasping her elbows in her palms. Her belly swells against the fabric of her dress, and Varis inhales curtly; a minute flare of the nostrils that she catches. Her smile is a red gash across the face, defiant in the face of all decency. She must've reapplied her makeup after supper, if she even bothered to eat at all. 

"Latest intel mentions increased passage on abandoned smuggling routes along the castrum. If the resistance has been stocking up, or petitioning the Corvosi army for aid, we might risk a full-scale rebellion. His Radiance, in his  _ infinite _ wisdom, has ordered my deployment…" His finger swipes right, between the relief of hillsides. "Here. For peacekeeping."

"Peace can only be nourished with blood," she comments flippantly, smiling still and leaning into him. Fitting effortlessly in his negative space. 

Her blonde hair, braided and pinned back tight along the back of her head, glows against the dark fabric of his well-cut dress uniform. The heady scent of her perfume tickles his nose. Varis bows his body inwards and breathes her in; the crown of her head barely reaches his ribcage, and she bares her teeth in a sly grin. If she's not laughing, she's snarling.

There have been moments where Varis considered her rejection decidedly more mortifying than a botched assassination. 

"It's a test, of course." Varis speaks the words so low it's barely above a plaintive murmur. They seem to shiver in the air. His expression is pensive, but tinged with a distinct shadow. One of his tells, she'd noticed, was the slight twitch of his brows. 

"He simply wishes to exacerbate my irritation by giving my men marching orders to some backwater  _ oppidum _ instead of sending us to the front proper. Just to gauge my reaction. It--it  _ amuses _ him. Like one of his precious opera's."

In the recessed lighting of the study, with its dark slate walls and sparse furniture, she stands out in the narrow stretch between the ostentatious desk and his chest. Vivid like the warning colors of a venomous animal. His wife regards him in anticipation, with eyes glimmering beneath full black lashes. It reminds him of the cusp of adolescence, of a firing range on a foggy autumn morning. Varis recalls the furtive movement in the sumac bushes flanking the targets, the sure grip of a pistol in his hand, the fatal jerk of a shot-spun pheasant, cracked to the ground in flight by his bullet. 

And her, watching him intently from the sidelines, white wisps of breath escaping the side of her mouth. 

"How will you react?" She purrs, snapping him back to the here and now. 

"There are several..  _ options  _ I've been entertaining these past few days." At the expectant quirk of her brows, Varis motions to the map with a dismissive wave. "Subterfuge. Install spies in their organization and sabotage both from the inside and out. If there's no organization behind this would-be rebellion however, if it's just  _ common rabble _ play-acting resistance, we root them out and crush them underfoot." 

She sucks in a breath deep and shuddery enough to make the tendons in her throat stand out. Eclipsed in the shadow of his massive frame, her eyes are alight. 

"But you would make an example of them, won't you?" Her voice quivers in barely-concealed excitement, and she wets her lips. "Drag them out into the open and bleed them dry for all of their compatriots to see?" 

"If they dare resist." 

Violence provokes a response in his wife that Varis has rarely seen in others before. She grabs onto him, bunching the crisp fabric of his button-up in a white-knuckled fist and looking every inch the viper coiled to strike, and whispers hotly, " _ I hope they will. _ "

Coming from anyone else's mouth the words would've been treason. Varis straightens up and crowds her against the desk, until she bumps into the edge and he can get his huge hands under her thighs. He hoists her up and seats her on top of the Garlean empire and its surrounding territories. A few frazzled strands of hair slide free from her braid. His wife pulls him closer; he settles between the unladylike sprawl of her legs and cages her in with his forearms. The study turns utterly still with that distinct variety of calm that comes before the start of  _ something significant _ , alive only with the hushed sound of their breaths.

"What else?" She demands then, conspiratory, tipping her head to the side to expose the curve of her neck, looking at him with a heavy-lidded gaze. 

Nothing remotely submissive about the gesture. 

Her dress fans out over the tabletop, creased under his thick fingers. Varis narrows his eyes, and the furrow between his brows sets deeper into skin. She lazily brushes a lock of lank blonde hair away that spilled over his forehead, then caresses the shell of his ear in a way that stops the breath in his throat. Heat coils down low in his belly. The gesture could've been categorized as affectionate, if she didn't stare him down like she'd gladly sink her teeth into his neck while doing so. It makes him want to ruck up her skirt to the hips, just to get even.

"Insinuate Corvosi influence," comes the response in a measured and tightly-controlled tone of voice. "I could instigate an incident implicating the Corvosi military, then bait border skirmishes and drive up tensions until an invasion is inevitable." 

Slender fingers curl into the hairs at the nape of his neck. "You would give your grandsire a war?"

" _ Conquest _ ," answers Varis, a small and threatening smile cutting deeper grooves into each corner of his mouth. "If His Radiance sees a threat, I will create one impossible to ignore. He will have no choice but to dispatch me on the preliminary incursions, and there, there I will--"

While the sudden kiss doesn't catch him off guard, the searing intensity does. She pitches backwards, pulling him on her with a grip so desperate he can feel it down to the roots of his hair. Their joined shadows sweep over the tabletop. Varis can't stifle the groan rumbling up his throat when she digs her teeth into his lower lip and  _ tugs,  _ hard. He hisses, eyes narrowed in a sour glare. They're chest to chest, and her breasts heave against him with every harsh breath. His wife swipes the flat of her tongue over his mouth, up to his nose, and her makeup is smudged; lips looking bruised and raw. 

The look she gives him is nothing short of predatory, and she reinforces the impression by thumbing his lower lip, tender from her bite. 

"You will deliver unto them the glory of Garlemald," She whispers-- _ no _ , she mocks, nodding slowly to emphasize her point, teasing the middle of his lip with her talon of a fingernail. Varis bristles and lords closer still, wanting her flat on her back, wanting her braid to tumble loose from the pins and dangle over the edge of the desk, wanting  _ her _ in the same infuriating,  _ dark _ way she's wanted him ever since they made their first forays into adolescence. The sensitive skin of his bottom lip breaks, splits open; and the sensation is sharp and shattering. 

Blue light slashes over the side of their bodies, highlighting the curve of her breasts and her pregnant belly and his hips positioned against hers. Her laughter, bright like peals of apple skin, resounds through the open doorway of the study.

(  _ She doesn't say, "I want the servants to hear us all the way to the dining room. I want them to gossip about this moment in the darkened corners of the palace for days to come." _

_ “I want you to tear into me.” _

_ "I want you to eat me alive." ) _

**Author's Note:**

> this fanart i saw of varis and his wife has been living rent-free in my mind for weeks; and since square enix didn't give us more than a cursory "his [zenos] lady mother shortly died after he was born of illness", i had to feed myself. it's a little intimidating to work with a character that essentially doesn't exist. it also meant i could do whatever i want. which i very much did.


End file.
